Michigan's Best Doughnut: Genesee County impresses tasters on statewide search

GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- Genesee County showed the best of two different sides of the doughnut world Monday, March 17, during MLive's search for Michigan's Best Doughnut.

Statewide entertainment reporter John Gonzalez made his first round of stops on his week-long tour of the state, and that included Fenton's Crust and Flint's Donna's Donuts.

"I think in Genesee County it's real simple, it's one exteme to the other," he said. "Crust is a trendy, artisan bakery and then Donna's an old standby, neighborhood factory worker place. And both were fantastic. ... I loved it here."

First up was Crust, a place that specializes in all baked goods (they make more than 125 products daily) but takes their doughnuts seriously. Its owners spent two weeks on research and development for just doughnuts when they opened about two years ago.

"We believe doughnuts are the next cupcake," said co-owner Mike Green, speaking on the cupcake craze that swept the country a few years ago.

Crust prides itself on being able to make a good, traditional doughnut while also being able to get creative.

It showed during Gonzalez' visit.

They started off with some standard varieties of doughnuts, which got plenty of "Mmms" from Gonzalez.

Then came the more creative varieties, such as the peanut butter and jelly doughnut, which iswhat it sounds like. It's a doughnut covered in a peanut butter glaze and filled with a four-berry jam. Like everything at Crust, the jam is made on-site, from scratch.

"That's pretty much as close to perfection as you're going to get," Gonzalez said.

One of the other standouts at Crust was the breakfast sandwich doughnut. They take their maple-glazed doughnut (which by itself got an "Mmm" of approval from Gonzalez) and turn it into a sandwich with apple wood-smoked bacon, Vermont cheddar, and scrambled egg.

Gonzalez said he enjoyed the artisan style and trendy atmosphere of Crust, and hoped it didn't scare anyone off.

Green said that hasn't been the case, adding that lots of seniors frequent the place, coming in for doughnuts and coffee.

From there, we traveled north to Donna's Donuts in Flint.

In The Flint Journal's local poll, Donna's was far and away the winner for a local pick, taking about two-thirds of the total votes. Part of that may have to do with the family-owned business' 36 years in town, priding itself on homemade ingredients.

"All our doughnuts get individual attention," said owner Alicia Gibbons, who took over the business last year after her father died.

Gonzalez said he liked the community atmosphere of the place.

"This
is your classic doughnut place, where everyone comes, all walks of
life, businessman to the working guy. Everyone can come here and feel
comfortable," he said, and then, after taking a bite of Donna's twist,
added, "Oh, yeah. That's great."

And there were also, of course, the doughnuts.

Gibbons brought out the community favorites. The biggest favorite, she said, are the "nutties," glazed doughnuts covered in a special mixture of crushed and powdered nuts.

People like them so much, she said, that they get mail orders from out of state about every month. It costs more than $30 to get a dozen doughnuts mailed that cost $11.15 at the counter, but the orders keep coming.

She also brought out her maple-glazed doughnuts, jelly-filled doughnuts, doughnut twists and another community favorite, the cream stick.

They got the nod of approval from Gonzalez.

"Very rich, but I think that's what people think of doughnuts," he said.
"Rich, creamy, great representation of a Flint-made product."

It's only the beginning of of Gonzalez' statewide search for Michigan's Best Doughnut. He'll be hitting 33 bakeries in 10 days (don't worry, he's on a strict running regimen as well).

You can keep track of his search here. He'll announce his top 10 on March 27.